


Everything Is Falling

by SomewhereSomeday



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Background Case, Established Relationship, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 12:54:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereSomeday/pseuds/SomewhereSomeday
Summary: "The case was supposed to be something trivial. Like faes or a badly taught practitioner. Well, it turned out I was wrong."A case of the Folly, that changed a lot of things in Peter's life.





	Everything Is Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone who wandered all the way here. I'm really happy you did. This is one of my first works, so I hope you will like it at least a little bit. Unbeta'd, so sorry for typos and mistakes.

The case was supposed to be something trivial. Like faes or a badly taught practitioner. Well, it turned out I was wrong.

We were standing in an old storehouse. All walls were made of bricks, roof of metal plates. And as Murphy’s Law has it, only one small door through which we’d got in. 

We were working on this case for about two weeks now, we made quite a quick progress with it. And yes, I should had probably noticed earlier. 

It all started with strange explosions all around the parts of south London. The explosions had never killed anyone but had hurt about fifteen people. And because those said explosions were ‘spontaneous’ as the reports put it, it immediately had become our problem to deal with. The accidents had happened usually sometime in the afternoon, only one had happen in the morning (but that’s not important, I suppose). And it was always, _always_ , a brick wall exploding. Seemingly without a reason. There you go, another case for the Folly. 

And so we were standing in that empty storehouse. And that was definitely not what we wanted, and expected, to find. The leads, _vestigium_ in our case, were way too apparent. I definitely should had noticed earlier. We had thought it was a practitioner who barely knew what he was doing and therefore was testing his new powers on London’s walls. Everything led here. And the moment Nightingale, I and all of the enormous back-up we had, walked through that door, we knew we were so, so screwed. 

The storehouse was empty. Or so it seemed. Nightingale and I walked in front of the back-up. It was our problem to deal with, after all. The worst thing was in who our back-up was. I would have dealt with Stephanopoulos, since she always took Sahra Guleed on actions like this, but what neither I or my the-last-wizard-of-England-of-a-boss absolutely cannot stand is Seawoll messing with our business. But we needed back-up nonetheless, just in case you know. And he wanted to be there for some reason so _badly_. And so he was there as well. To witness our _light failure_. Or our _astonishment_ rather.

The thing was, that the storehouse was empty. Except it wasn’t. And we found that out pretty soon. As soon as the last person walked through that bloody door. I felt it instantly, and I am sure Nightingale did too. The unknown _signare_ washed over us along with a shockwave. The strangest thing about it was that that was it. A _shockwave_. No explosion, no fireballs, no _nothing_. And to be honest, that kind of scared me to death. But like hell I would ever confess that to Nightingale. I knew what I was facing anyway. And what I had to do. And so did the person that taught me magic.

‘Down!’ 

Shouted both me and Nightingale unison at the people behind us, who would most of the British nation in my situation call _muggles_.

The exact moment we did, a fireball flew our way. I found the right _formae_ to _Aer_ to protect myself and generously let Nightingale take care of covering for the others. But I ducked anyway since we all know what kind of a wizard I am.

‘Peter!’ I heard Nightingale shout. And I knew perfectly well what that meant.

I turned to the small crowd behind us.

‘Out! Everybody out!’ I screamed as loud as I could, pointing at the door we came in through. 

And to my huge amazement, they did. Or rather, they tried to. Until the wall above the door exploded as well. And of course the fallen bricks had to block the only way out of that place. And I still don’t know how the practitioner did it, and I am definitely asking Nightingale about it someday, but there was also no way they could climb over the bricks to get away. Well, what can I say? _Magic_. 

‘Stay back!’ I shouted. 

And again, they did. And for the briskest second I felt like I had respect. But it was more that I was one of the only two people that could handle that situation. Ehm, ‘ _handle_ ’, in my case, well, you know. But hey, don’t take my illusions away.

I ran back to where Nightingale was. Or as close as I could get at that moment. Because I am sure that everybody knows how hard it is to run straight when there are fireballs trying to hit you and rip your lungs out like they are nothing but a speck of dust. 

But I still managed to get to him at the distance of about ten yards. He shot me a quick questioning glance and a nodded, knowing what the question was. Yeah, the rest was as safe as currently possible. 

Another fireball came our way, and another and another. I ducked, even though I kept the shield in front of me, and honestly I started to get really good at using it. Given how often I did it, it was all but logical. But I still ducked, not knowing how powerful exactly our opponent was. But from what I had seen so far I guessed quite a lot. Certainly more than I fancied. 

Then suddenly the fireball rain stopped. Nightingale stood with one hand extended to the other side of the warehouse, still neatly dressed without a flaw, hair perfectly combed and an air of confidence, steel will and something undeniably magical and so _Nightingale_ in a way I did and yet didn’t know around him. I suddenly felt unbelievably relieved that I was on the same side as him because I would never ever want to be on the side battling him. And maybe a second later I realised that that strange feeling must quite definitely be deep respect. An awful lot of respect with a slight undercurrent of fear. He really went through the Second World War. Or any war, actually. That didn’t really matter, he was a soldier nonetheless. And what a soldier he was. There was this small quiet voice in my head telling me that I should be honoured to be the same side but I was too busy with what was going on that I didn’t care to listen to these insignificant things. There was a battle to fight, one I could and had to be a part of.

‘Peter,’ I heard from in front of me, a bit impatient. 

‘I know!’ I answered, maybe a bit too roughly. 

The thing is, me and Nightingale, I mean, Nightingale and I, had a plan for such an occasion. And so I did what I was supposed to do. Nightingale shot a fireball or two in the general direction from where the other fireballs came while I scanned the opposite wall. They had to be there somewhere. My cop sight came handy in some situations connected to magic, like this one. I watched the wall. There was one particular spot that my eyes missed, slipped along. And that was it. 

‘Sir,’ I said. And that was enough. 

I took a step to the left, just because you always turn left, right? I couldn’t believe I had time to think about things like that but apparently I had. So I took a step to the left and threw three sci-fi grenades in different directions. One of them going in the particular way I, we all, needed it to go. I had more than one moment of surprise. First: the practitioner didn’t know I knew where he was and second: he didn’t know my sci-fi grenades, in all probability. Nightingale covered for me so from the outside it might looked like a useless apprentice didn’t know what he was doing. Except that I did. I did know very well. 

And the sci-fi grenades exploded, one by one. And the practitioner was surprised. I thought that day was going to turn out just fine. Wrong again, apparently. Yes, he blew up. Sort of. There was an explosion and the cover spell he was using this whole time came crashing to pieces but he was still conscious and willing to fight, even if a little scarred and bleeding. As I suspected. We were not to leave this building.

But neither was he. 

Our opponent was a white man in his mid-twenties, light brown, almost blonde hair and strange look in his eyes. He was _determined_. And I didn’t like his determination. Neither did Nightingale. He fired a huge fireball his way. And he _freaking stopped it_. This definitely wasn’t what I was hoping to find. Again, should had noticed earlier. 

Before I could react in any way there was an, from a fan’s point of view, amazing ultimate fireball battle but that’s definitely not what I saw. I saw my boss and master in one person facing an enemy that was strong enough to stop his fireballs. But I knew something the practitioner didn’t. _Nightingale was holding back._ I could see it on his face. 

I shot a quick glance at the supposed back-up crowded in the furthest corner of the storehouse, watching this frightened. Even Seawoll stood there wide eyed. This was something they weren’t supposed to see at all. This was going to be so much trouble. 

A fireball landed near me as I got distracted by the back-up. I jumped to the side and shot fireball on my own. And at that exact moment I could see our opponent’s expression. _Yeah,_ I though, _there’s two of us._ And maybe smirked a little bit. But as it turned out, we weren’t the only one who had an ace up the sleeve. 

Something exploded just next to me and I flew a few yards to the right. I could hear Nightingale’s surprised shout: 

‘Pet-‘ 

Another explosion. 

I got up. The Practitioner was focused on Nightingale entirely, thinking that little trick of his with tiny Demon traps had knocked me unconscious. Good thing I started to get used to being thrown around like a puppet. Technically not good but you know what I mean. 

And so I aimed and shot a red fireball with so much strength it surprised me. Nightingale somehow shot his fireball at the same time. I think he knew what I was doing because otherwise he would have had done something much more powerful, being angry at the enemy for throwing me across the floor and all. The practitioner blocked his fireball but didn’t see mine coming. I was kind of pleased. He must have had a tiny permanent shield around himself this all time because my fireball didn’t rip his lungs out but only burned him and threw him against the back wall.

Nightingale looked my way, pleased smile on his lips. Still neat. I just don’t get it. He was about to say something, taking a step to the suspect instead of me though. Except I never got to know what. I saw in the corner of my eye how the practitioner lifted his hand, his lips moving. And a felt his _signare_ , the now somehow unpleasantly familiar _signare_ , wash over me.

And the only thing I could do and did, was shout. Scream. The only word that had any meaning in that situation, any meaning whatsoever. The only one that meant something.

I could feel the back-up watching, the practitioner’s smugness, the shockwave. Everything and yet _nothing_. The single outcry that echoed in the immense noise as the brick wall behind us and the metal roof above us came crashing down. Everybody heard it, I am sure of it. The practitioner, the back-up, Stephanopoulos, Seawoll, Sahra, him, everyone. 

And suddenly it wasn’t just the wall and the roof that crumbled down. Suddenly it was the entire world. Everything was falling.

_‘THOMAS!’_

**Author's Note:**

> So this is it. End of chapter one. Hope you liked it. I'm not sure if I'll be posting more chapters but I'd like to. English is not my first language so if you found anything weird, let me know. I'd appreciate the feedback~


End file.
